West faces harassment after organizing mine workers

West remembers an effort to organize a mine in Kentucky. Organizers who tried to make contact with workers faced swift retribution from mine owners, so West and his wife, Connie, decided to get jobs as scabs, infiltrating the mine and organizing it from the inside out. The scheme worked, but retribution came: West spent six weeks in jail and was ordered to leave the state upon his release. As he left the state, all four wheels flew off the car.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Don West, January 22, 1975. Interview E-0016. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Full Text of the Excerpt

JACQUELYN HALL:

Where were you living exactly when you got involved with the workers
alliance?

DON WEST:

We were living on Greasy Creek in Bell county. That was the time when
Connie and I were arrested and taken to Pineville Jail. Let me see, now,
how did that happen? We were living on Greasy Creek and I was working
over at Kajay in a coal mine. There was a big mine over there. There was
a general miner strike going on throughout a lot of the coal fields. And
the big mine at Kajay had not come out. Three of us decided that we
would go in and get jobs as scabs. You see, then you couldn't
go to a miner's home, even on a week end, go to a home and
talk with him. You wouldn't be in the house more than three
or four minutes and there would be a knock on the door and someone would
be there: "What you doing there, buddy? You don't
live here. You get back where you belong?" Three miners
couldn't meet on the street corner, stop and talk, exchange
the time of day. They would be broken up by the gun thugs, you see. So,
the only chance we had to really talk with people was to slip around and
do it secretly or, we thought, now if we get a job in there we can talk
with those men on the job. So three of us went in and got jobs. They
were hiring people because some of them had come out and the others
weren't. So we went in. Didn't take us long. A few
weeks before we pulled the whole mine out. And the day after that
happened we were coming home, about dark. We lived up on old Greasy
Creek in a miner's shack. Two rooms. Had a baby. Our older
daughter was just about two years old. We'd just gotten in
the house when suddenly at this door and this window and all there was
an officer with a six shooter, just like a bunch of desperados were
being taken, you know. Arrested. And they piled all my books and
papers and everything into some trunks and boxes
we had and took them along with us, down to the court house. They
confiscated my books and my total library and they put us in jail.
Accused me of conspiring to overthrow the government by use of the
churches. I was a preacher, you know. Eventually I spent about six
weeks. I was taken out, given a trial. I defended myself. And they put
me under $5,000 peace bond. Actually, one of the three people
who went in there was the one who swore out the warrant for me. He was a
stooge, you see. So, as I say, I've had experience with
stooges. I mentioned this Ansel Morrison. I mentioned later Paul Crouch.
So I was put under $5,000 peace bond. Just before we were
arrested I had left my car in a garage to have a little repair work
done. And when we got out of jail the judge's stipulation was
that I should leave Kentucky, that I shouldn't be around
there. Immediately when we got out, when we were released, we got in the
car and started over the Cumberland Gap to the Tennessee border. We
wanted to get over in Tennessee where Kentucky couldn't pick
us up. On this mountain road suddenly flammmm, a wheel went off. All
four of those darn wheels ran off of that thing. The nuts were just
barely on there, you know, and on this mountain road I imagine they
thought we would be quick to get out and wreck the car, but it just
didn't. But here we were, flat on the road. That was an
experience. We finally got it fixed and got over the Cumberland Gap.
Then I went to another part of Kentucky. I went under… George
Brown golly, what was the name? Had so many names I don't
remember.